Till the Butchers Cut Him Down (36 page)

Snap.

So he’s still holding for the medevac copter. Or he’s changed his mind about coming. Or …

Snap-snap-snap.

Suits—where? He’s not totally crazy, is he? He doesn’t want to kill himself, endanger other people, set the base on fire.
Does he? No. He’ll try to down the copter over vacant land or the water.

Snap.

So not over here. Not at the dry docks or India Basin. But over by South Basin … The contaminated area.

Snap.

Done!

I pushed the free section of fence inward. Stuffed the bolt cutters back in my pocket, wriggled through the hole, got to my
feet.

Still nothing to hear. Just the same background noises and the wind whistling around the deserted buildings, gusting up the
empty streets.

I began to run parallel to the fence, on unpaved ground that was illuminated only by dim security lights on the surrounding
buildings. Ahead was a street that branched off toward the contaminated sector. I veered down it, heart pounding, muscles
straining.

And then I heard the faint sound of a helicopter, far out over the Bay. When I glanced toward India Basin I could see its
winking beacons as it approached; it was coming from the northeast, would fly along the dry docks.

Hurry, McCone!

I stuffed my .38 into the rear waistband of my jeans so I could pump more freely with both arms. Ran harder than I’d ever
run in my life.

The street ended. A flat plain dotted with heaps of debris and half-collapsed buildings stretched between there and the slick
black water. I could smell chemical odors mixed with the salt tang of the Bay.

Toxic waste. Untold horrors—

The copter flew lower now, angling along the ends of the northern dry docks. A flare went off by the shore of South Basin.
Another, then a third and a fourth. Glowing red signals showing Josh where he should set down the JetRanger.

I sprinted toward the flares, dodging around the noxious trash heaps and ruined buildings. Off to my left a figure was slipping
away into shadow. Suits, moving in his peculiar furtive gait.

The copter was passing the southern docks now, turning into the basin.

Suits had stopped, shielded from the copter by the tilted remains of a shed. He waited, then stepped out. Stood with legs
apart. I saw the shape of the AR-15, braced against his shoulder and trained on the approaching copter.

Without slowing, I called out to him.

He slewed around. The rifle was now aimed at me. His black clothing blended into the darkness, but his pale face stood out.
His face and his wild, wild eyes.

“Suits, don’t! It’s … Sherry-O!”

Hesitation, as if he couldn’t quite place me. Then he lowered the rifle, glanced over his shoulder at the copter.

I made myself slow to a fast walk, closing on him.

He looked back at me, brought the rifle up again. “What the hell’re you doing here?”

“Trying to help.”

“I don’t need your help, Sherry-O. Go away.”

The copter was moving along the basin, within the AR-15’s range. Descending slowly, carefully. This was a hazardous landing;
Josh would concentrate on the flares, on what he could see of the ground. If Suits fired, he’d never know what happened. …

Suits still held the AR-15 on me. “Back off, Sherry-O.”

“No.”

The copter was just offshore now.

“Back off! Quit trying to save me from myself!” He jabbed the rifle’s muzzle at my chest.

The gesture shattered the lid I’d been keeping on my anger. I warned myself not to do anything stupid.

The copter was directly over the flares now. As it began its clumsy descent, its landing light washed over us, momentarily
blinding me. When my vision cleared, I saw that Suits had swung around, was aiming the AR-15 at the part of the fuselage where
the fuel tanks were.

I rushed him, putting my hands out to deflect the rifle’s barrel. They connected solidly, knocked it sideways. Suits staggered
but maintained his grip. I grabbed him by the shoulders, spun him around, dragged him down.

He fell across my legs, still clinging to that damned rifle. I pushed him off, managed to yank the .38 free of my waistband.
Suits was struggling to get up, his right hand clutching the rifle’s stock. I brought the butt end of the .38 down on it,
broke his hold, then shoved him onto his back and straddled him.

He was still fighting me, clawing for the rifle. I reversed my hold on the .38 and jammed its muzzle into his left ear. Hard.

“Don’t move,” I said.

His jumpy gaze focused on my gun hand, calculating.

I pulled back the hammer. Leaned forward until my face was close to his.

“Listen, asshole,” I said, “I don’t give a damn about saving you. I’m doing this for Anna.”

He stopped struggling, stared into my eyes. The wildness was beginning to fade from his.

“Anna is the biggest and best part of you. If you kill Josh, you’ll destroy that part, and then there’ll be nothing left of
her.”

A shudder passed through his slight frame, and suddenly he went limp. Behind me the copter noise had altered, grown louder;
when I looked back, I saw that it was ascending, fast. Josh had seen us, realized what had been about to happen.

I took my gun from Suits’s ear and stuck it back into my waistband, at the same time reaching for the AR-15. I removed the
cartridge from the rifle and tossed it away into darkness. Then I got up, hesitated, and extended a hand to Suits.

He pushed up to a sitting position, staring at my hand. But then he took it, and I pulled him upright. He stood panting, shoulders
slumped, as if he’d run a long race and lost it.

The copter was swinging out over South Basin.

In a low voice Suits said, “He was responsible for it all.”

“I know.”

“And now he’s going to get away.”

Josh turned east toward the Bay.

“No, he’s not,” I said. “He’s flying back to Oakland. We can have him picked up at North Field.”

The JetRanger slowed, abruptly turned back. I watched its winking beacon as it glided over the middle of the basin.

“Even if he tries to escape, he won’t get far,” I added. “Given the range of that copter, where can he hide?”

My words echoed between us. I looked at Suits, saw my sudden thought mirrored in his expression.

He said, “Maybe he just realized that, too.”

The copter had begun a steep ascent. Briefly it stopped, seemed to dance in the air. Then the engine cut out, the rotor slowed,
and it plunged toward the water.

Seconds later a fireball blossomed and lit up the night sky.

The narrow road climbed high into the Mendocino coast range, shadowed by giant redwoods, running in switchbacks. I drove at
no more than thirty-five, slower on the curves; it had been nearly fifteen minutes since I’d encountered another vehicle,
but that had been a logging truck traveling much too fast.

A week had passed since Josh Haddon destroyed himself and the JetRanger. Within twelve hours of the crash, Suits was back
to his old self: downplaying the episode to the press, covering his ass with his moneymen, assembling a new organization from
the remains of the old one. He acted like a man with a mission; perhaps he thought that purposeful activity would redeem him,
make him worthy of the part of him where Anna still lived. To me he seemed somewhat frantic, hiding from the central issue—namely,
that his life had to change.

As for me, I’d allowed him to cover up the events surrounding Josh’s death. Had allowed him to weave a fabric of truths and
half-truths. Josh, the official version went, had engineered the Bodine drug frame with the sole help of Noah Romanchek (half-truth);
had shot Bodine when he followed Suits to Lost Hope and assaulted his wife (I had my opinion on that, but I kept it to myself);
had begun a campaign of harassment against his boss that culminated in Anna’s death (truth); and had taken his own life while
on a routine run to pick up Suits at Hunters Point (again only half).

Once, I wouldn’t have been party to such a sham, but as I’d told Mick, that was what life did to you. Old loyalties, as well
as new ones, were at work there. And it was the new ones that today had prompted me to undertake a mission of my own—one that
I’d almost decided would best be left undone.

Earlier this afternoon I’d visited Moonshine Cottage and confirmed a couple of details. Then I’d driven in to the town of
Mendocino and checked the missing-persons reports filed with the sheriff’s department. What I found was further confirmation.

Now I passed a logging road that cut far back into the timber. Climbed some more and crossed a one-lane bridge over a dry
creek bed. The road switchbacked three more times, then straightened and came to a wide clearing.

Dwellings sprawled haphazardly on either side of the pavement: wooden shacks with iron or tar-paper roofs, old house trailers
sitting on blocks, newer prefabs. A sign in front of a pair of rusted Quonset huts said Ridge Reservation School. Next to
the huts was a dirt playing field with a pair of netless basketball hoops mounted on standards. The only person I saw was
a heavy woman in a flowing orange dress sitting on a lounge chair under a tarp that stretched between two of the house trailers.

I pulled over to the side of the road and got out of the MG. A couple of brown mongrels bounded over, wagging tails giving
the lie to their menacing barks. I scratched their ears, started across the road to the woman.

She got up and went inside her trailer, slamming its door.

I stopped, looked around for someone else. Saw a small girl of about seven peeping around a pile of old tires. I smiled at
her, and she covered her mouth with her fingers. When I went that way, she drew back and ran toward the Quonset huts. I followed.

The little girl skirted the huts and took a zigzag path through a cluster of junked cars and trucks. A rubbish heap lay beyond
them; she stopped beside it, glanced back, then veered toward the redwoods surrounding the clearing. I ran after her. The
rough-barked tree trunks crowded closer together; the kid’s footfalls were muted on the blanket of needles and moss. For a
moment I lost her. Then I heard voices—hers and an adult woman’s. I followed their sound and came to a smaller clearing.

It was the reservation’s graveyard. Low metal fence, the kind you buy at the nursery to border your flower beds. Weathered
tombstones and wooden markers, in some cases just piles of stones. Plastic flowers, mostly faded by the sun, blooming in profusion.
At the far end on a broken-down redwood bench sat a woman.

Anna Gordon.

She had her arm around the little girl. When she saw me, she whispered to her, and the kid ran back toward the trees, giving
me a hostile look as she passed.

Anna had changed markedly since I’d said good-bye to her at Moonshine House: the lines that bracketed her mouth were more
pronounced; her hair was unkempt and dull; her jeans and T-shirt hung much too loose. But it was her eyes that told me she’d
changed inside as well: self-containment had hardened into self-preservation. As she regarded me down the length of her ancestors’
graveyard, their focus was cold and wary, a flicker of fear in their depths.

I said, “Nobody knows I’m here.”

She watched me, waiting.

“And if you insist, I’ll never tell anybody.”

After a moment she nodded, motioned for me to join her on the bench. When I sat down beside her, the flimsy structure listed
my way—she’d lost that much weight.

Neither of us spoke for a while. Finally Anna asked, “How’d you know?”

“The room where I stayed at Moonshine Cottage. When I was packing, you told me you were expecting Franny Silva that day, that
changing the sheets would give you something to do after Suits and I left. I went up there in September—Suits holed up at
the cottage after the explosion. The sheets were different—blue, rather than the ones I’d slept in. Recently I realized that
Suits, bad off as he was, wouldn’t have changed them, and I wondered if you’d been in the cottage rather than in the house
when it exploded.”

“That wasn’t much to go on,” she said. “Certainly not enough for you to drive all the way up here.”

“No. At first I tried to convince myself I was mistaken, but it kept nagging at me, so today I went to the cottage and found
the maroon striped sheets I’d slept in in the hamper. Then I checked with the sheriff’s department in Mendocino. Franny Silva
was reported missing a week after the explosion. She’s never turned up. I suppose it was her fillings that your tribe’s dentist
identified as his work.”

Anna winced and closed her eyes. “Franny. No one even told me she was missing; runaway teenagers are pretty commonplace up
here. God, I never even knew a body was found at Moonshine House; my people don’t bring back newspapers from the outside,
and there’s no TV up here.”

The outside: she sounded as if she was speaking of a world she’d left for good. History had come full cycle for her, as it
had for her parents. I wondered if I was too late to bring her back.

I asked, “What did you do after the explosion?”

“Ran. Away from the cottage, I don’t remember where—it’s pretty much a blur. Late that night I hitched a ride on the coast
highway, had the driver drop me off at Ridge Road. And then … I came home.”

“You walked all that way?”

She nodded. “For a long time after that I was pretty much out of it. I still am, in a way.”

“Is that why you haven’t gotten in touch with Suits?”

Her fingers tightened on the edge of the bench. She drew her knees up and hugged them to her breasts. Shivered, even though
the warm autumn sun touched her shoulders. She looked toward the gravestones, and I followed her gaze to a wooden marker with
plastic roses scattered at its base.

“That’s where my mother’s buried,” she said. “My father used to beat her. Finally he went off with a woman from the Pomo reservation
down on Stewart’s Point Road. I never really expected much from a marriage.”

“Anna, Suits had nothing to do with the explosion.”